Wednesday, August 3, 2011 — Swimming is brisk

Kathy and I managed to get two swims in yesterday. I would say the late afternoon one was even icier than the morning. Definitely cooler than the day before. But that certainly is an incentive to do more energetic exercises and generally keep moving. The dogs didn't even make a motion to leave the rocks. The wind is down this morning so there is promise of warmer water soon.

Good friends of Mike and Jenny arrived late yesterday afternoon. They are Brits who have lived in the US some time ago and have been living in the south of France most recently. They are evidently planning a move to Paris. They drove all the way up from Los Angeles yesterday, ate dinner and went to bed. We left Echo early this morning to get Elena down to Tahoe for her last tennis lesson so I have yet to see them up close and get a big hug. Thirteen years ago Andrew was visiting us in Fort Bragg and I remember him helping me edit my many pledge drive pleas to fund the possible purchase of our Pacific Textile Arts property. He is a writer and producer and I still credit him with some good advice regarding that early material. Well, he lucked out and has essentially missed the bulk of the current building fund drive.

I'm at Alpina Cafe again. What good people watching. I have a nice little tucked away spot indoors but I can see outside and the newcomers stream by at a distance. I'm such a hopeless eavesdropper. There are several interesting conversations going on quite near me and I find myself actually trying to keep up with both of them while I sit here with my laptop.

I awoke once last night at about 3:00 and read until 4:00. I finished the book I had been reading by the woman Terrie Gross interviewed last Friday while I was driving up to the mountains. Named "Whipsmart." It involved a woman (the author, Melissa Febos), who spent four years working as a dominatrix. I pulled it up on my Kindle while eating a garden burger in Pollock Pines. It's a fascinating description of perversion the likes of which most of us never view. By about half way through I began to feel I'd heard enough. Just too Yuck, and I also began to wonder why Terrie Gross enthused so during her questioning. I finished the book at 4:00 this morning and experienced a complete turnaround in my feeling about it as it came to completion. In the last pages I understood full well why it was worth staying aboard. Amazing breakthroughs take place in this woman's psyche. She is obviously terribly intelligent. But you know how that can be. Many a smart person has trouble seeing the forest for the trees. She makes discoveries about life and its many choices and turnarounds that are worth sharing. So if you have the same urge to quit, I'd say, stick with it.

Another book I just finished is "The Last Restort" by my friend Norma Watkins. It's a memoir of her life growing up in Mississippi during Jim Crow and (so called) after. Very generous in its candor and it rings as true as a bell. My friend Roger said he couldn't put it down. I just received an email from Norma saying that she'd received a rave review from the Washington Post. Yeah! You can buy it at most stores for sure and its also available on Amazon.

I'm now ready to resume reading "Incognito, the Secret Lives of the Brain" by David Eagleman. This isn't necessarily a book for reading straight through but truly a source of so much new information about the amazing workings of the brain. Interestingly enough, the last pages of Whipsmart touch on some of the same tricks our brains play on us. Sometimes life's synergy absolutely amazes me.